In-School Intoxication

Huff: to inhale the noxious fumes of a substance for their euphoric effect. (Merriam Dictionary)

My evidence is purely anecdotal. There are no statistics on the internet for this activity. It is rarely even discussed anymore as doing so is no longer an option. It was done without shame. It was done always with an adult present. It is something that I am comfortably stating that 100% of my generation engaged in. We may or may not have known better but we did it anyway.

 Yet the substance of which I speak was not airplane glue or paint thinner. It was something even more ubiquitous than that. It was something we came in contact with on a daily basis from Kindergarten to Graduate school-- both the cool and uncool kids were eager participants.

The thing we all did was huff. And the substrate of our euphoria was: mimeographed test papers.

There was something about the fumes of the indigo-purple ink embedded into a sheet of white paper that was particularly intoxicating. And the darker the print, and the wetter the paper, the greater the high.

It was our Ritalin.

It was what inspired us upon inhaling,to race through our exams.

It was the snort of champions.

And if you were truly lucky the teacher would allow you to help with the mimeographing itself. So not only did you get the opportunity to inhale the ink but you also got to crank the handle at the same time. We churned copies at the speed of light. We were human laser printers.

But the insidious infatuation came to an end. Technology caught up. Copiers became cost and time efficient. Production killed the mimeograph.

This generation has had to miss out on one of the best parts of being in school.

And the only overlap in the huffing arena between my generation and that which came after mine is a box of 64 Crayola crayons—there is something pretty addictive and intoxicating about them too. Intoxicating enough to make the color unmellow yellow—the stuff of an (almost) 1960’s Donovan song.